Underwater Coral Reef Restoration Eel-Bot

Overview

Throughout the world coral reefs are dying out due to changes in water temperature and pollution, ruining one of the most important ecosystems in terms of food, resources, and products for humans overall. We must slow down and completely eliminate the dying of coral reefs, or the entire ecosystem may reach extinction. Hence this invention has the goal of creating an underwater robot capable of delivering coral larvae while swimming like an eel (travelling wave motion), streaming footage, and using a swim bladder to change depth. Materials used include a 3D printer, laptop with softwares, adhesives, waterproofing materials, Arduino UNOs, servos, and more. The robot is designed to use multiple blocks housing servos linking to create the travelling wave motion. The head doubles as housing for the camera, and the tail doubles as the larvae container. The swim bladder is an apparatus made of a rubber tube, valve, and balloon attached to the main robot. All systems independently functioned well and the goal was near to being fully met, however the servos, once fully wrapped and waterproofed, were too weak to handle the load and tension, causing the motion to struggle underwater. The motion previous to the wrapping did work well though, and all other criteria including the simulated coral larvae delivery, streaming, and swim bladder. So in conclusion, the robot was near to functional, and although did struggle in swimming underwater, performed all other tasks well and could be improved on to make it stronger and work well.

Competition history

• CSEF 2026 Environmental Engineering (Track 2) (Junior Division) · Entry J-12-17

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